


Power of Life and Death

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Depression, Duty, Family, Father and Son, Gen, Grief, Loss, Responsibility, kingship, references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 11:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18497842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon, Roald, and the rift between them as they stand over Lianne's tomb.





	Power of Life and Death

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Royal Week challenge as part of the Free for All Event at Goldenlake.

Power of Life and Death

Jon could smell incense lingering in the air around his mother’s tomb. Someone–likely Uncle Gareth–had been here earlier, leaving behind the distinctive aroma of myrrh, bitter perfume of the dead. He almost choked on it as he bent to arrange a wreath of the first spring flowers around her hair. When he was little, he remembered with a pang, he had always brought her flowers from the gardens because they had made her smile and pat his cheek. She had placed them in vases on windows or tables and pressed her favorites into books so they would be preserved forever in the peak of their bloom. Too bad nobody had preserved her forever in the peak of her bloom, but people weren’t flowers to be pressed into books.

“They say a king has the power of life and death over his people.” Father stared down at Mother’s tomb, oblivious to how Jon bristled beside him. Once Jon would have welcomed–even if he didn’t agree with–any guidance his father gave him on governing the kingdom, but his father wasn’t ruling the country any longer. Jon was, and he resented it when his father stumbled out of his cloud of grief long enough to pretend to dispense advice. Father, Jon thought, should have been the one leading the realm out of its current crisis. Instead he had abdicated all responsibility, dumping it all into Jon’s lap. 

“Yes.” Jon could hear the sharpness–the irritation–in his own tone, but that was nothing new or unique to this conversation. Mother’s death had sharpened everything about Jon–his focus, his determination, and his sense of duty–until there was no softness left inside him. “That’s why he must wield the power wisely.” 

Wasn’t that where the rift between them had begun to open so that when they stood inches apart in the crypts it felt as if leagues separated them? That Roger was still living in luxury while Mother lay in a stone-cold tomb forever? That Roger should have been executed as soon as he had been resurrected but Father hadn’t the courage to issue such a decree? 

“They’re wrong when they say that.” Father’s gaze was bleak as his fingers traced the face of Mother’s tomb tenderly as if it were a warm, breathing one. Since Mother’s death, Father had been more prone to philosophizing than the Mithran monk who had taught Jon philosophy in the pages’ wing, and twice as morose. “Kings don’t have the power to save anyone from death–not even those they love the most–and if they don’t have the power to save those they love from death, what is the point of being king?” 

“To serve your people.” Jon shook his head, stunned at how his father couldn’t see the purposes of ruling that were clear as crystal to him. “To lead them out of troubled times into better ones.” 

“What if a king can’t bear to serve any more?” Father’s question was so devoid of hope that Jon wondered if his father was seeking advice rather than attempting to give it. “What if a king doesn’t have the strength to lead any longer?” 

Even when he was weary to the bone of the endless meetings and pressures that came with ruling, Jon couldn’t imagine not having the strength to lead any longer. He was born to rule, and he would die before he stopped trying to lead his people to a better future. He didn’t have any answers, any advice, or any understanding to give his father so he stood silent as the shadow of death beside his father.


End file.
